The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest / The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years

by Unknown

What to Do

By Leo Tolstoy

(See pages [88], [110], [148], [276], [374], [416], [555])

It is very easy to take a child away from a prostitute, or from a beggar. It is very easy, when one has money, to have him washed, cleaned and dressed in good clothes, fed up, and even taught various sciences; but for us who do not earn our own bread, it is not only difficult to teach him to earn his bread, it is impossible; because by our example, and even by those material improvements of his life which cost us nothing, we teach the opposite.

True Education

(From “Zadig”)

By Voltaire

(French philosopher and poet, 1694-1778; a skeptic and bitter satirist, imprisoned and exiled to England. One of the great intellectual forces which prepared the French Revolution)

A widow, having a young son, and being possessed of a handsome fortune, had given a promise of marriage to two magi, who were both desirous of marrying her.